Tagged with 'finance'

2020: An Energy Year in Review

• February 08, 2021
• 6 minutes
• finance, inspiration, lifestyle, personal

Now that I've had a chance to really look at the data from our 2020 electric use, in a modified format from what I've written about before, I thought I'd wrap up with an overview of our overall electric use during a most unusual year.

Interesting Pandemic Electric Usage Pattern

• June 15, 2020
• 3 minutes
• finance, inspiration, lifestyle, personal

This is a relatively short post, but as I entered our May electric usage into my tracking spreadsheet (see the Energy Use Analysis post from a while back), I noticed something peculiar about this last few months since the pandemic really hit (and we started staying at home all the time).

Shaking The GnuCash Account Tree

• May 18, 2020
• 5 minutes
• finance, inspiration, personal

Over the years I've developed a habit where a short part (~30 minutes on average) of most weekends are dedicated to entering the week's receipts, reconciling (or balancing) accounts, updating investment fund values, and so forth. Once familiar with GnuCash, this process is pretty straightforward and easy to do. Then, roughly quarterly, I go through and double-check any accounts that have fallen behind this cycle for various reasons (sometimes an account wasn't used during that time, other times I just forgot to reconcile it, and so forth).

GnuCash For The Win

• May 04, 2020
• 6 minutes
• finance, inspiration, personal

As I wrote about a couple months back, GnuCash is my accounting software of choice since ~2010. I wasn't exactly "sold" on it from the start, but it was a free and open-source solution that seemed robust enough to handle pretty much anything I could throw at it, from managing business finances and whatnot to a whole mess of personal accounts. Did I mention: free and open-source?

Energy Use Analysis

• April 20, 2020
• 7 minutes
• finance, personal

A little over a decade ago we had a ground-source heat pump installed for our home heating and cooling. Commonly called a 'geothermal' system, the basic function is that it uses the earth's relative/stable temperature (well below the frost line) to act as a heatsink for air conditioning and heating. In the winter (or heating season), heat is transferred from the ground and (through the process of compression) 'superheated' where it's released across a typical air conditioning coil in our normal furnace.

The Financial Automation Account

• March 02, 2020
• 6 minutes
• finance, inspiration, personal

A couple weeks ago, I made brief mention of my financial automation account and how I've come to consider it my "free money" account. I wanted to dig into that topic just a bit more, since it's become a key component of my own regular financial well-being.

Why an Automation Account?

Simple: it's thoughtless, once set up.

Financial Literacy Matters

• February 17, 2020
• 9 minutes
• personal, finance

As we enter the thick of tax season (I just filed ours this past week), I thought I'd write a short bit about my own take on financial literacy. This idea was originally sparked when I read an article last year about Why Financial Literacy Matters from a more education-based perspective. I suggest giving it a quick read.

Hocus Focus

• February 25, 2019
• 8 minutes
• lifestyle, weather, personal, finance, reading

It's been a long last few weeks. Actually, make that the last month. At times it's felt impossible to focus. On anything. And there are many things: